er--in a word has started to do the
impossible and--has not done it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Well, Percy, do you still wish this fun wasn't going to be over quite
so quickly?"

"No. Yet I don't know. I suppose it's only right to see some of the
rougher side, as well as the smooth," answered the young fellow
pluckily--though truth to tell his weariness and exhaustion were as
great as that of anybody else. There was the same hollow, wistful look
in his face, the same hardened and brick-dust bronze too, and his hands
were not guiltless of veldt-sores, for he had borne his full share both
of the hardships and the fighting and was as thoroughly seasoned by now
as any of them.

"I was something of a prophet when I told you the toughest part of the
campaign was to come, eh?" said Blachland, filling up his pipe with
nearly the last shreds of dust remaining in his pouch.

"Rather. I seem to forget what it feels like not to be shot at every
day of my life," was the answer. "And this beastly horseflesh! Faugh!"

"Man! That's nothing," said Sybrandt, his mouth full of the delicacy
alluded to, while he replaced a large slice of the same upon the embers
to cook a little more. "What price having to eat snake?"

"No. I'd draw the line at that," answered Percival quickly.

"Would you? Wait until you're stuck on a little island for three days
with your boat drifted away, and a river swarming with crocodiles all
round you. You'd scoff snake fast enough, and be glad to get him."

"Tell us the yarn," said Percival wearily.

But before the other could comply, a message from the officer in command
arrived desiring his presence, and Sybrandt, snatching another great
mouthful of his broiling horseflesh, got up and went.

"Another wet night, I'm afraid?" said Blachland philosophically,
reaching for a red-hot stick to light his pipe, which the rain dripping
from his weather-beaten hat-brim was doing its best to put out. "Here,
have a smoke, Spence," becoming alive to the wistful glance wherewith he
whom he had named was regarding the puffs he was emitting.

Spence stretched forth his hand eagerly for the pouch, then thrust it
back again.

"No. It's your last pipe," he said. "I won't take it."

"Take it, man. I expect there's a good accumulation of 'bacco dust in
my old coat pockets. I can fall back on that at a pinch."

Spence complied, less out of selfishness th